The Cost of Wedding Flowers

When it comes to wedding expenses, at some point, we will all ask why a wedding costs so much.  While we cannot speak for the entirety of the wedding industry, we can definitely speak for our facet: the flowers. We hear things all the time like, ‘they are just flowers, they will die after the wedding’ or ‘how do they cost THAT much’.  It is not so much about the end product as it is their life journey to make it to your wedding day! They add so much life to your wedding day, but yes they do come with a price tag so walk with us as we share just why your wedding flowers are more expensive than you thought.

1: The Consultation

Most of us women have been planning our weddings since we were old enough to know about them. Aiding in those plans in most recent years is Pinterest, which we all LOVE. We most likely already have a board with every dream picture we could pin for our own wedding one day.  Then somehow along the way you have found us, maybe through the Internet, word of mouth, or an event where you saw our work. You request a consultation with us where you will most likely bring said pictures from Pinterest and tell us that you want that one luscious bouquet.

2: The Flowers

For each type of flower, there is a cost of labor for what is required to grow it and transport it. This will almost always vary depending on the season and weather as well as the flower. Keep in mind there are more delicate flowers than others and they all grow in different seasons as well as different environments. For the bride that comes to us in September with that Pinterest picture of a peony bouquet, we most likely will not be able to get them, but if we do, they will be shipped from around the world which absolutely raises the cost for transportation. Everyone wants your flower to be delivered in prime quality, so they need to be picked, packaged and processed carefully in the right time. All of this is just to get it to our door!

3: The Production

On a typical week, flowers arrive on Wednesday morning and every flower that comes to our doorstep is wrapped and packaged. We spend more time undoing rubber bands and cutting off plastic wrap than you could imagine! You might even be surprised to hear that each hydrangea comes individually wrapped and tubed. It can take hours to process these blooms. Once each bunch that was ordered is accounted for, we clean the stems, strip them of foliage (sometimes brides request absolutely no greenery so that requires a lot more work), trim the ends and put into a fresh re-hydrating solution. We ensure that each dead or bruised petal is removed from each flower and that the bloom is in its best quality. Once they have been prepped we place each one in the temperature controlled environment it needs to be in which means a BIG fridge increasing the power bill or a warmer room to help open some of the buds. From hundreds of roses or hydrangeas to bundles and bundles of greenery, nothing goes untouched during production. Somewhere in this process we prep all of our containers too. We gather every hard good that we will need to place flowers in from larger centerpieces or single stems and we hand pack each individual votive which means hundreds of little glass pieces to be packed.

4: The Design

This part of our process takes the longest in such a short amount of time. We might have been planning and meeting with you about your wedding for nine months, which is definitely a long period of time, however, we work the hardest in three short days to design each piece. This includes bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres, centerpieces, aisle flowers, arches, single stems, greenery swags and much more. All of these designs have to be created the week of the wedding to ensure that the flowers do not die, so our timing is very limited. Once each piece is created it is misted with a floral holding spray, checked to ensure it has ample water (sometimes this requires checking on certain pieces multiple times over the course of a few days to add water) and then placed in the cooler.

5: The Transportation

For some of us, this is the scariest part! After finishing long days of work, it’s time to load the vehicles and our only rule for this is pack carefully and pack until we cannot pack anymore! We always allot extra time for traveling because it takes just a little bit longer to make those turns when you’re loaded down with flowers and often times we have to make multiple stops to drop off the personal flowers before heading to the venue.

6: The Set Up

Once we arrive to the venue location, we unload the flowers in the coolest spot (especially in these summer temperatures!) and begin to set up. We place each arrangement and vase in its appropriate place based off of our layouts that we have received from the planner. We will let you in on a little secret during this process, most times things do not go as planned. No matter how much planning we have done over all of those months meeting with you and your planner, some week’s things just keep us on our toes! As a florist, we have to adjust and really live in flexibility almost every week, but for some of us, this keeps things fun!

7: The Take Down

No, the flowers just do not magically disappear each week after you leave your wedding for your honeymoon! It requires a team effort for our job to be completed. We return after you and your guests have left to gather all of our hard goods, votive candles, leftover flowers and arrangements that the family does not take home. Sometimes this can keep our team out until 1am by the time take down is complete. It does not stop there though! The week after the wedding we spend time unloading all the vehicles, returning hard goods that we may have rented, cleaning out buckets and wax that has melted to the side of all the votive candles. We spend time cleaning items and then packing them again for the wedding we have that next weekend. It is not always just the cost of flowers that you pay for, it is the labor and time invested into each piece that we touch and the team that we have to gather to make it all come to life.

Our teams desire is to give you that perfectly dreamy wedding you have always envisioned in the most financially feasible way. We do not sneakily add in hidden costs just so we can make an extra few dollars. By the time you get your bouquet, it has traveled across the world and interstate, has been handpicked and designed just for you which leads to our end goal of seeing your eyes fill with joy and tears because it is what you always dreamed of it being. THAT is what makes every effort and penny worth it. And even though flowers die, we all have the lasting impression and photos of that perfect wedding day.